What happens when a viral TikTok challenge is stretched into a 26-day endurance ritual? I started with a 960 g stone and kicked it day after day, documenting its erosion down to 545 g until, on day 26, it split in half.
This lecture uses the Stone Test to think through the acceleration of society and ecology: Paul Virilio’s grey ecology of speed and systems, and Timothy Morton’s dark ecology of uncomfortable closeness to the world and nature. What begins as a simple act of kicking a rock turns into a symbolic ritual that resists the cult of productivity. The slow push toward a sphere is less about perfection and more about perception. Meaning is made through friction, repetition, and material limits. Along the way, the lecture challenges our sense of what counts as meaningful work in a life governed by speed.
The lecture will be delivered in Lithuanian.
